Several types of thermoset polymers are generally used in commerce. One type is the acrylic thermoset polymers cured by a free radical addition mechanism. These polymers are cured by heat initiators, such as peroxides, or by photoinitiators, such as alpha diketones. A characteristic of the cured acrylates, however, is large polymerization shrinkage, which is undesirable for many uses. Another undesirable characteristic of acrylates is the formation of an oxygen-inhibited layer on the surface upon curing.
Another type of thermoset polymers is the one based on cationic polymerization of oxirane (epoxy) monomers. These are cured by use of a two-part system or by use of photoinitiators. The disadvantages of oxirane-derived polymers, however, are high water uptake in service, large polymerization shrinkage, and high cost.
Another type of thermoset polymers is the one based on a ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) mechanism. Metathesis is generally understood to mean the metal catalyzed redistribution of carbon-carbon double bonds. The polymerizable composition comprises a resin system that includes functionalities or groups that are curable by ROMP together with a metathesis catalyst, such as a ruthenium carbene complex. However, to efficiently utilize ROMP to prepare polymers, there is a need to control the progress of polymerization, particularly for molding applications, and especially in one-part systems.
In addition to ROMP, other metathesis reaction systems utilize metathesis catalysts, for example ring closing metathesis, acyclic diene metathesis polymerization, ring opening metathesis and cross metathesis. There is further a need for controlling the progress of reaction in these other metathesis reaction systems.
The thermoset monomer types that are curable by ROMP are the cycloolefins, such as dicyclopentadiene (DCPD), as described in Woodson U.S. Pat. No. 6,310,121. These resins are usually molded, and there is a further need to control the progress of the metathesis reaction for this monomer type.
There is also a need for thermoset polymers that can afford similar physical property profiles as the analogous acrylic, aziridine and oxirane systems, such as hydrophilicity, tailored modulus for the desired application, hardness, etc. with a minimum of their disadvantages, such as polymerization shrinkage.
Various patents address the polymerization of cyclic olefins such as DCPD, tricyclododecene and the like, for example, Tom U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,425. Two of these patents mention compounds containing norbornenyl functional groups and ROMP with the goal of producing a highly crosslinked polymer, namely Bissinger U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,068 and EP 1025830A2 by Moszner. Bissinger describes several ROMP catalyzed resin systems based on dinorbornenyl dicarboxylate ester (DNBDE) compounds or a combination of DNBDE compounds and acrylates. A trinorbornenyl tricarboxylate ester (TNBTE) compound was also disclosed. Moszner describes ROMP of norbornenyl monocarboxylate, which is a monofunctional monomer. However, the combination of the particular resins and catalysts does not achieve the controlled reaction progress desired for many applications.